


The Walls Are Thin Here

by DoubleX



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Rated T for like one f-bomb, literally just fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 13:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11945004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoubleX/pseuds/DoubleX
Summary: Tyler is doing perfectly well, thanks. He's stone-faced, stoic and perfectly happy with his perfectly normal life. But when the intriguing mess of a man that is Ethan moves in next door, Tyler starts to realise that the walls he puts up aren't quite as thick as he thought.(aka the one where Ethan is sad and Tyler protecs him through an apartment's wall)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: This started as a kind of de-stress fic for me, and it's going to stay that way. It might be cliché, there might not be much plot etc. but I love writing this sometimes to chill out ^-^
> 
> Please do leave suggestions down below!

For a second, or maybe ten, he thought it was morning. Time to get up and enjoy the weekend, which were two things Tyler thought were mutually exclusive. The birds were no longer singing from that nasty row of half-dead trees outside his window, so he must have slept in.  _Then why am I so tired? I didn't stay up_ that  _late._

The leaves outside rustled as if to purposely aggravate his sore head, and Tyler rubbed at his crusty eyes with a frown. He  _could_ leave his warm duvet cocoon and open the blackout blinds of his little apartment, but the paper-thin walls were picking up every movement of those damned trees and Tyler just couldn't be bothered. It was Saturday, he could go back to sleep.

 _Wait...wait a minute._ Perhaps the walls between rooms were about as durable as his New Year's resolutions, but Tyler was pretty sure the  _outside_ of the building was made of solid brick. Which meant that it wasn't the leaves rustling at all, he realised as he leaned back to paw at his alarm clock in the darkness. Why hadn't it awakened him? The clock gave off a bright-green glow when he finally found and slapped the buttons inlaid in the shoddy plastic casing, and the angular numbers quite clearly read... _12:03am?! Fuck, no. Fuuuuuuuuck this._

But if the leaves weren't the source of that infernal rustling and movement, what was? And that was when Tyler heard it, just for a moment - the unmistakable, muffled sound of a person trying not to cry and failing. Like a gasp, but wetter. Wrinkling his nose, Tyler rose grudgingly to see which wall it was coming from; it still sounded like the rustling of leaves outside his apartment. But after pressing his ear to each wall, Tyler was sure it was coming from the wall next to his bed. No wonder he was awake! That explained the moving van, too. Ella, wasn't it? Or Ethan. Something like that.

He went to knock on the wall and ask for a little quiet from the mysterious restless sleeper, when whoever it was on the other side hit something. Over and over again, a sharp crack of skin against something that made Tyler wince. It only took a few rounds of that to realise that his new neighbour was slapping  _themselves_ , and Tyler's heart broke a little. He flopped back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling he couldn't see and chewing on his lip. What would drive him to trying to shut himself up with literal slaps?

"Hey, are you okay?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. There was a gasp, and then a moment of silence.

"Y-yes! Uh, thank you! Sorry if I woke you up, I tend to be a little jumpy - ADHD, you see? Or not, it's night, aha - and it's worse when I can't sleep, or in new places, and this is kind of both, in a way? So, um, like I said, thank you for...caring, I suppose? Um, I'm good. How are you? I mean, probably tired. You probably want to go to sleep, yeah. Forget I, forget I said anything. Yeah?" Like a waterfall of words, the voice came back scratchy and male and youthful. The last word sounded like a plea, or maybe a ewe bleating.

Despite himself, Tyler grinned. Then his face fell, even though nobdy could see him, and he furrowed his eyebrows before replying. "I do want to go to sleep, but now I'm a little worried for the kid slapping himself on the other side of my wall," he pointed out quietly, rolling over to face the wall. Not that he could see it, or through it, but it was important to look at people when they were talking to to you.

"Our wall," corrected his neighbour quickly, and Tyler could almost hear the sad smile in his tone. "And...and I'm not a kid. And as for the sla...you know what, I'm going to stop bothering you now. Goodnight, um...sorry, what's your name?"

"Tyler. My name's Tyler. Goodnight, Ethan."

"How did yo-"

"Moving van man kept shouting about you - he was way louder than your crying," he explained colloquially, surprised when Ethan-from-next-door drew in a sharp breath. He'd only meant it as a joke, but Tyler didn't hear another sound that night.  _Fuck. What did I do?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S CALLED A SOFA NOT A COUCH I HATE YOUR WHOLE LANGUAGE

It was a strange day. Every time he picked up some cutlery with a clatter, every time there was a loud jumpscare in one of the movies he was watching, every time a bird sang shrilly to its fellows in those damned trees, the same sound came from next door. A gasp, a bang and a furious curse.  _That's not just ADHD,_ Tyler decided around noon.  _The ki-guy sounds fucking terrified._ Shrugging on an old t-shirt and a pair of much-loved jeans, as well as a grey beanie sitting on his bedside table, he cranked up the DVD's volume and shuffled tiredly into the kitchen. He had a plan.

 _First things first._ Hoping the sound of the movie would cover for him, Tyler dug out a bottle of milk from the fridge and poured the last few cupfuls down the sink. He sank back into the couch and paused the film, so his strangely quiet roommate would definitely hear him trudge to the kitchen and make some coffee. When he 'noticed' the milk had 'ran out', Tyler cursed and clutched the bottle to his chest - as well as a little something else from his freezer drawer. Before he had time to think through the flaws in his plan, he was knocking on Ethan's door with a tub of ice cream and an empty milk bottle balanced in his arms.

The ummistakable sound of Ethan jumping came from not so far away, and Tyler shuffled his feet silently. Gasp. Bang. Curse.There was a moment of awkward silence before the door swung open, and Tyler was met with a worried frown and wide eyes. What colour were they? Blue, grey, brown, green, hazel was green and brown...what was the name for blue and green and grey.  _The sea._ The thought came unbidden, and Tyler tried to push it away as he grinned apologetically at Ethan-from-next-door.

"Sorry if I startled y-" he started, just as Ethan opened his mouth to say, "Are you okay? I hear-"

They both shut up, and it was awkward for another moment. Tyler looked at his shoes, and then at the ceiling, and then at the wall, and then at the ice cream, and then at the milk bottle...and then into Ethan's searching eyes.. "I'm fine, thanks," he murmured after a quiet infinity, "but my hands are getting a little cold. I, er," -  _since when do I stutter? -_ "I kind of wanted to bring you a welcome gift and ask for some milk for my coffee at the same time?" It came out like a question, and Ethan looked kind of bemused as he presumably tried to translate what Tyler had said.

Tyler took the opportunity to notice some things.

  1. This kid was short, or young. Tyler could literally see over his head.
  2. Either way, he needed to stop calling  _Ethan_ a kid.
  3. _Ethan_ had dyed hair, a kind of silvery violet blue that was just a little bit less green than his eyes.
  4. _Ethan_ had acne, like a lot of people Tyler knew. It didn't look bad, though. It was kind of endearing, like a freckle on someone's cheek or the crooked smile people told Tyler he had. How did that work?
  5. _Ethan_ was kind of maybe perhaps mayhaps possibly probably extremel-



"S-sure thing, um, Tyler! Come on in!" The opportunity was over, and Tyler tried to look as nonthreatening as possible as he ducked past his new neighbour through the doorway. Ethan's apartment looked like the mirror image of his own, if a little more sparsely furnished. The Overwatch menu, pulsing silently on the television, gave everything a ghostly blue glow. Apparently this Ethan fellow wasn't a morning person either. Ethan himself, clad in bright blue flannel pajamas, practically tiptoed past him towards the fridge after shutting the door with a click and Tyler suddenly felt awful.

"Um, here's some milk," Ethan was saying, his head in the fridge. "Was that all you needed?" Tyler nodded quickly, then realised Ethan couldn't see him and clarified, "Um, yes! And here's some ice cream to celebrate you moving in! I've never met anyone who doesn't like ice cream, so I-ahem. Sorry."

The light from the TV screen bathed half of Ethan's face in blue as he grinned. "Thanks...Tyler. And, uh, sorry about last night." Tyler shrugged, "Don't mention it."

They stood there for a moment. Ethan coughed. Tyler reached out to take the milk and the smaller man jumped again. "Hey, do you want to share some of that ice cream? I, uh...I have an extra controller...? I mean, if you want, which you probably don't because you want to get back to your coffee and your weekend, I'm sor-"

"Sure." The shock on Ethan's face was immediate and momentary, and it made Tyler want to chuckle and cry in equal measure. "Let's eat some goddamn ice cream."

**Author's Note:**

> okay then looks like i'm writing another chapter how fabulous and spontaneous


End file.
